Lucy Kusinada
Exiting the Net, young Kusinada involuntarily pursed her lips in a sign of worry. The new purchases of such important and valuable, but expensive things, had again reduced their family budget by a significant amount. But there was no other way... it was impossible. What happened to Tony clearly showed that without backup in the Net, any of his missions, even the simplest, in this city could escalate into something bigger, with a bunch of corpses, bullets, and blood. And if Stark ended up dying... Lucy simply couldn't imagine how to survive that.
"I'd probably get hooked on some heavy psychotropic drugs," the little girl answered herself darkly, cynically, but with brutal honesty.
Having survived... a lot, too much for a formerly sheltered child, Lucy was currently stable, but she was at the limit of her moral strength. She tried to hide this even from herself, but from time to time, the accumulated stress broke through, like those same tantrums that Tony and Omnissia were then forced to calm down. Captivity, the loss of friends, the constant dance with death, disappointment in her parents, escape, and a new life—all of this together and separately was strong stress, especially for a fragile child's psyche, and together they created a simply infernal cocktail capable of breaking even an adult. But Lucy somehow held on, even beginning to slowly unwind the internal spring of constant tension. She realized that what had happened had probably affected her, but she didn't understand how exactly such events could influence her, and she had other things to do.
Night City... a dirty city. Dark, full of anarchy and the blood of its own residents, whom it daily devours to maintain its own life. If Warsaw, despite everything, tried to maintain order, limit marginal masses, and strive for a bright future, even if every step was given with great difficulty and only over time, then Night City resembled a terminally ill person who had nothing left to lose and was rushing to the end in an adrenaline frenzy, having cast aside all moral and ethical restrictions. She hadn't been in this city for even a month, but she had already managed to find in the city network many murders, thefts, racketeering, and rapes, whose creators could be easily brought to justice... but this wasn't done.
"Here, in this city, there is only one law—the law of the strong," Lucy realized at some point, beginning to adapt. It was enough to accept this simple thought, "the strong are right," and everything suddenly fell into place. And not only in Night City! A child killer wasn't imprisoned because a corporation stood behind him. A man who bought girls with burned-out brains from the Tiger Claws, which he replaced with a behavioral chip, and who traded his own children from them, conducted his business because he kept a well-armed gang. And at the same time, a guy who accidentally killed a robber was in prison, a mother who sued her husband for breaking their child's head was fined for slander, and a brother who avenged his dishonored and suicidal sister burned himself along with the culprits because he knew they would get to him, and protection from the authorities was not to be expected. And the same with her! Her father turned her life into a nightmare because he was stronger, her mother didn't protect her and abandoned her because she was weak, and only her stepbrother came to save her because he was strong.
"Weakness is a sin," her lips whispered a simple truth by which their entire world lived.
Getting out of the bath, wearily rubbing her face with her hands, trying to drive away a bit of fatigue, Lucy looked around her own workspace. There was a lot missing here, in fact almost everything. A basic server, a tub of ice, an access point, and that was it. No proper data center, no archive of programs for all occasions, no camera to monitor the situation in reality. If not for her implants, she would have been a powerless observer, a ghost of the network, incapable of anything significant.
Wiping her naked body with a towel, Lucy, as always, glanced in the mirror. There was nothing to see there yet—her breasts had only recently begun to grow, her hips too, and there was no waist to speak of. Except maybe her butt and legs, but the first was excessively small, and the second were too thin. An ungainly girl...
"Whose skin is also ruined," she thought with force, running her hand along the lines of synthetic skin created for better heat exchange, with anger and shame. "No wonder he refused," and now there was sadness with shame.
It wasn't that she seriously wanted to jump into bed with an essentially adult man as soon as possible, but in Lucy's life, Tony had become that single point on which the stability of her entire life rested, and some sense of security. On the way to Night City, she had time to think everything through and analyze it.
Kusinada had always been a smart girl, quick to learn, able to read between the lines, and form her own opinion from several sources. Her mother, despite everything that had happened and the almost complete shifting of parental duties onto servants, wanted only the best for her daughter. And her constant repeated speeches that she and Tony would marry were one of the few things she did as a loving mother, and not just as a stranger admiring a cute little girl. Lucy wasn't a fool, but she was a child without proper life experience and with access to the internet, with all the content that shapes modern society. Of course, she often came across blogs, advice, and stories from "social lionesses" talking about millionaire guys, full provision, freedom, and the like, while they themselves couldn't even afford a cup of coffee. And not natural coffee, but synthetic. But that's what young Kusinada understood now; back then... no, she didn't consider it the ultimate truth, she simply didn't care, but she took note. Lucy simply didn't think about her future, as her present completely satisfied her. She went with the flow, studied, developed as a netrunner, and basked in abundance and love. Now, taught by bitter experience, she thought about the future and willy-nilly remembered those videos and advice she had heard. And what could she say... if you believed them, then in a year or two she should go lose her virginity in a club with some random guy, by eighteen she should have tried a hundred members to "understand men," and then find a millionaire husband with a tall stature, a giant bolt that would tear her ruined hole, a pretty face, a kind character, and a caring attitude, who would at the same time tolerate all her antics and fulfill her whims. When Lucy formed an image of this very thinking of modern girls... she was simply stunned. She didn't understand what was going on in their heads, but against their background, she was the pinnacle of adequacy and logic. "Understanding men"? By having sex with a whole bunch of them? And how would that help determine their character? Lucy thought she knew her parents, but her father sent her to the slaughter, and her mother simply gave up, NOT EVEN TRYING to help her daughter. And in general... to allow a stranger, a barely acquainted person, into herself, into her body, Lucy simply couldn't imagine, despite all her intellect and imagination. And she wasn't even talking about what such girls were supposed to bring to the relationship. From all such sources, she saw only one answer—"be faithful." That's it. Faithfulness was presented by these girls as if it were something so sacred and rare that it should justify all their past actions and openly consumerist attitude in the present. Imagining herself in such a role, Lucy quickly came to the conclusion that she would simply be replaced. An advanced android, a simple poor kept woman living under a very clear contract, a WELL-BRED person with brains, not an abstract thought "they give me everything-everything, because I'm so beautiful and let them fuck me." But the main thing... Lucy simply wasn't interested in all this.
She couldn't say that she loved Tony as a man—she simply wasn't of that age. He was her only family, savior, benefactor, a person who had sacrificed EVERYTHING that his parents had left him for her. A bright future, a factory built by his own hands, a native home, and money left by the Starks to their child so that they would be confident in his well-being—he gave all this up to save one girl who wasn't even related to him. And this... caused shame.
"Weakness is a sin," Kusinada repeated her thought. Because of her weakness, her friends died. Because of her weakness, the only person close to her gave up everything he had and was now forced to risk his life, work for gangsters, and steal just to settle in a new place. If she were strong, this wouldn't have happened.
She couldn't say whether she wanted to become Mrs. Stark, but she would become her. Even without the surname, just as a bed warmer, she didn't care—she owed her named brother too much to pay attention to such trifles; the sense of security she felt in his arms and the feeling of stability given by his name alone was enough for her. Love between a girl and a man? She loved Tony; he was a good person, the only one who didn't abandon her, who sacrificed himself, and with him, she was confident in the future. Some ephemeral elevated feelings didn't interest her; dreams were just the dust of the bodies of burned dreamers; objective reality was important. And the reality was that Tony Stark was the best, and after everything he had done, the only option for Lucy Kusinada. That was what her mother had drummed into her since her birth.
Finally gathering her strength, she dressed in home clothes—a simple stretched T-shirt, a bit worn but all the more homely, and loose shorts, tied like a bag with a couple of strings. In Poland, they didn't let her walk around the house like that, always dressing her in cute dresses, skirts with blouses, and other purely girly wardrobe; here, she wore not what was beautiful or practical, but what was comfortable, immediately falling in love with this style.
"Is Tony already gone?" she asked Omnissia, entering the kitchen. She had already eaten, but after the self-inflicted nervous strain, she wanted something sweet to improve her mood and nerves.
"Confirmed. Master Stark has a meeting scheduled with Eva Barnes."
"I see," Lucy replied, not very happily.
She wasn't jealous of Tony; she simply didn't want anyone outside to influence their lives. She generally had a hard time trusting people with whom she wasn't connected by the most basic, and therefore fundamental, social ties. The same Tony had proven his attitude, and in general, he was the future father of her children; Omnissia was devoted to him down to the last screw, and the rest were potential traitors, killers, fraudsters, Arasaka spies, slave traders, or someone else from the same opera. Not the healthiest sign, but Lucy wasn't going to fight it in any way—in the modern world, such an attitude was extremely beneficial for health, and for social connections, she had Tony and Omnissia. "Did you check her?" she asked the main question, determining whether she would run back to cover her foolish brother through the network or could allow herself to snack in peace.
"I checked." Would you like to receive the subject's personal file?
"Send it to my computer," Lucy decided. After all, she had seen this Eva and fully understood Tony's interest in her. Like any healthy man, he had certain needs, and although Lucy was embarrassed by the hypothetical development of their relationship in the horizontal plane due to lack of experience and an extremely personal situation, she agreed. But for better or worse, Tony didn't have sexual deviations, and little girls didn't interest him, and she still had six to eight years to wait for her breasts to fully form.
"Although there's something exciting about this," Lucy noted to her own surprise. "Puberty, is that you?"
Lucy closed her eyes, imagining what would happen if Tony agreed and... nothing.
"Well, what if like this?"
Now she imagined Eva completely under Stark's power, who played with her body as he pleased while she, helpless with a rounded belly, accepted all his lust.
"First fetish, is that you?" Feeling something warm in her lower abdomen, Lucy noted, struggling with her burning face, she thought... a little confused and even annoyed. Too much had fallen on her lately; she wasn't in the mood for early puberty at all! "God, what a mess I have in my head," she decided.
"I register an increased temperature," and here the cold, soulless tone was replaced by a mischievous, satisfied one. "Someone is clearly thinking about something naughty."
"N-no!" Kusinada squeaked slightly. "I just overheated while working with the network, that's why I'm storming a little!" she objected in a tone she wouldn't have believed herself.
"I'll pretend I'm convinced," Omnissia nodded.
Tony Stark
Descending in the elevator from the top floors of the megabuilding, Tony cast a bored glance over the inner courtyard. Dozens of small cafes, thousands of vending machines, gyms, shops with mixed assortments where you could find everything that might be useful at home. There, the "Li Has Everything" shop flashed—a wild mix of a hookah lounge, bar, ice cream café, pharmacy, and grocery store. They used to sell clothes there too, but a full-fledged clothing store opened across the street, where you could not only buy but also sell old clothes, so Li had to reduce the assortment. By the way, Tony bought the same crane with other trifles for the filter from Li.
"This was the norm for underdeveloped countries in my world," Tony thought.
In developed countries, it was characteristic to divide stores by specializations, the peculiarities of mentality originating from workers at factories and spreading further into all spheres of activity. The principle of division of labor was too effective to be neglected, and where there was division, there were high-profile specialists. A chef specializing in fish was unlikely to be able to perfectly prepare foie gras, but he could prepare poisonous waterfowl as easily as an experienced bachelor could make an omelet. The same went for clothes—store department workers could easily tell what was made of what material, what could cause allergies, what was better, what was worse, whose price didn't match the quality, and vice versa. Such mixed stores were characteristic of underdeveloped countries, where instead of shopping centers and supermarkets there were bazaars and markets where anyone could come with goods of any quality.
And it was especially wild for Stark to see such a shop in America, in Night City, one of the richest cities in the world.
Under not the most cheerful thoughts, Stark left the elevator, directing his steps to the nearest café. A more or less decent one, since at night a whole horde of cops gathered there, and with such visitors, you couldn't skimp too much on quality. But gangs kept as far away from such places as possible. During the day, it was just a quiet place where you could go and not be afraid of poisoning.
"Hi!" As soon as he entered, Eva immediately waved to him. She stood out sharply against the gray crowd. Pink hair to her shoulders, large golden eyes, tanned healthy skin, and an exciting figure that the tight leather pants, elastic black tank top, and light yellow jacket couldn't hide. On the pants, by the way, was a belt to which a holster with a simple Militech M-10AF "Lexington" in pink and a handful of grenades—two stun and three fragmentation—were attached. On the streets of Night City, it was hard to find a person without a weapon; even children walked around with guns here, but everyone hid their guns. Only gang members, mercenaries, police, and corporate career soldiers openly carried weapons. So Tony wasn't surprised that there was a kind of exclusion zone around Eva's table.
"You're early," checking the watch on his wrist, Tony noted. Unlike others, Stark's eyes remained natural, not implants, so he didn't have a virtual interface with a map, health status, video output, and clock.
"After yesterday, I couldn't sleep," she replied with a roguish smile, waving to the waiter. "And they didn't let me—the girls questioned me all night about what happened, and then they even took me to the ripperdoc to check my health."
"And how's your health?" Tony asked.
"Normal. There's slight exhaustion with dehydration—I was held for two days—but otherwise, everything's fine."
"Glad to hear it," Stark honestly admitted, opening the bottle of beer brought by the waiter. In his past life, he had serious problems with alcohol, but in Night City, and in the whole world, the booze was so bad that he wasn't afraid of relapsing. Wetting his throat, warming up—still okay, but getting pleasure from consuming THIS was extremely difficult. At least for someone who knew good drink. "And how's your family?"
"A-a-a..." Barnes drew out, waving her hand. "My brother went into another creative frenzy and didn't even notice my absence. If it weren't for the little one who occasionally fed him, he would have passed out from hunger again."
"You have a sister too?" Tony was surprised. Large families in modern realities weren't exactly rare, but it was another matter that far from all children survived. Few died of hunger and disease, even in Night City (the case with Biotechnica was an exception), but being killed by a robber, overdosing, poisoning with some particularly nasty stuff, or catching a bullet in a shootout was easy.
"Yeah, a younger one, she's thirteen. A crazy little bitch with a love for big guns," Tony's interlocutor smiled warmly, immediately making it clear that she loved her sister. "And what about you?"
"Two sisters." Omitting A LOT of details, Tony admitted. "The older one is a real pain in the ass, but you can always rely on her, and the younger one is just a smarty and a beauty."
"Well... so what are we going to do?" Eva asked, clearly sensing the awkwardness.
"Maybe we'll visit Jackie? At the same time, we'll meet his ripperdoc. As I understand it, Big Guy trusts him, and that's a big rarity in Night City. It wouldn't hurt to have such an acquaintance."
"Good idea," Eva admitted. The Moxes didn't have their own ripperdoc; instead, they collaborated with a couple of doctors near the docks—they provided protection, and the doctors guaranteed their work. Everything was fair.
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100 power stones= 1 Bonus Chapter
advanced chapters available on{P@treon/Anna_N1}